The Good Shepherd Convent on Belfast's Ormeau Road once had a steam laundry where women regarded by the institution as 'fallen' were set to wash the clothes of the better off. Although the laundry building no longer stands, a story is told of it.
It is said that in March 1879 a young orphan named Ellen, who had just turned 17 and wanted to become a nun, worked in the laundry. Her dangerous task was to lift buckets of boiling water from a large boiler, and she lost her balance and fell in. She was pulled out and a doctor sent for, but she died of her injuries later that day.
A few years later, the story continues, horrific screams began to echo through the convent, and on rare occasions the ghost of a teenage girl briefly appeared. The sounds alarmed the other girls working in the laundry, but the nuns were said to be dismissive. According to the directory, the sounds went on quite regularly for about two decades.
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